There are the following 4 types of cloud that you can deploy according to the organization’s needs-
- Public cloud is open to all to store and access information via the Internet using the pay-per-usage method.Some public cloud examples include those offered by Amazon, Microsoft, or Google. These companies provide both services and infrastructure, which are shared by all customers. Public clouds typically have massive amounts of available space, which translates into easy scalability.
- A public cloud is often recommended for software development and collaborative projects. Companies can design their applications to be portable, so that a project that’s tested in the public cloud can be moved to the private cloud for production. Most cloud providers package their computing resources as part of a service.
- Public cloud examples range from access to a completely virtualized infrastructure that provides little more than raw processing power and storage (Infrastructure as a Service, or IaaS) to specialized software programs that are easy to implement and use (Software as a Service, or SaaS).
- In public cloud, computing resources are managed and operated by the Cloud Service Provider (CSP).
- Example: Amazon elastic compute cloud (EC2), IBM SmartCloud Enterprise, Microsoft, Google App Engine, Windows Azure Services Platform.
There are the following advantages of Public Cloud –
- Public cloud is owned at a lower cost than the private and hybrid cloud.
- Public cloud is maintained by the cloud service provider, so do not need to worry about the maintenance.
- Public cloud is easier to integrate. Hence it offers a better flexibility approach to consumers.
- Public cloud is location independent because its services are delivered through the internet.
- Public cloud is highly scalable as per the requirement of computing resources.
- It is accessible by the general public, so there is no limit to the number of users.
- Public Cloud is less secure because resources are shared publicly.
- Performance depends upon the high-speed internet network link to the cloud provider.
- The Client has no control of data.
Private cloud is also known as an internal cloud or corporate cloud. It is used by organizations to build and manage their own data centers internally or by the third party. It can be deployed using Opensource tools such as Openstack and Eucalyptus.
Private Cloud provides the same benefits of Public Cloud, but uses dedicated, private hardware. Private cloud means using a cloud infrastructure (network) solely by one customer/organization. It is not shared with others, yet it is remotely located. The companies have an option of choosing an on-premise private cloud as well, which is more expensive, but they do have a physical control over the infrastructure.
The security and control level is highest while using a private network. Yet, the cost reduction can be minimal, if the company needs to invest in an on-premise cloud infrastructure.
Based on the location and management, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) divide private cloud into the following two parts-
- On-premise private cloud
- Outsourced private cloud
There are the following advantages of the Private Cloud –
- Private cloud provides a high level of security and privacy to the users.
- Increased redundancy
- Decreased provisioning time for new servers
- Saved capital by eliminating hardware support contracts
- Quicker expendability compared to hosting your own physical servers
- Use of dedicated, private hardware
- Private cloud offers better performance with improved speed and space capacity.
- It allows the IT team to quickly allocate and deliver on-demand IT resources.
- The organization has full control over the cloud because it is managed by the organization itself. So, there is no need for the organization to depends on anybody.
- It is suitable for organizations that require a separate cloud for their personal use and data security is the first priority.
- Skilled people are required to manage and operate cloud services.
- Private cloud is accessible within the organization, so the area of operations is limited.
- Private cloud is not suitable for organizations that have a high user base, and organizations that do not have the prebuilt infrastructure, sufficient manpower to maintain and manage the cloud.
Hybrid Cloud is a combination of the public cloud and the private cloud. we can say:
Hybrid Cloud = Public Cloud + Private Cloud
Hybrid cloud is partially secure because the services which are running on the public cloud can be accessed by anyone, while the services which are running on a private cloud can be accessed only by the organization’s users.
Hybrid cloud, of course, means, using both private and public clouds, depending on their purpose.
For example, public cloud can be used to interact with customers, while keeping their data secured through a private cloud.
Most people associate traditional public cloud service with elastic scalability and the ability to handle constant shifts in demand. However, performance issues can arise for certain data-intensive or high-availability workloads.
Example: Google Application Suite (Gmail, Google Apps, and Google Drive), Office 365 (MS Office on the Web and One Drive), Amazon Web Services.
There are the following advantages of Hybrid Cloud –
- Hybrid cloud is suitable for organizations that require more security than the public cloud.
- Hybrid cloud helps you to deliver new products and services more quickly.
- Hybrid cloud provides an excellent way to reduce the risk.
- Hybrid cloud offers flexible resources because of the public cloud and secure resources because of the private cloud.
- In Hybrid Cloud, security feature is not as good as the private cloud.
- Managing a hybrid cloud is complex because it is difficult to manage more than one type of deployment model.
- In the hybrid cloud, the reliability of the services depends on cloud service providers.
- Community cloud allows systems and services to be accessible by a group of several organizations to share the information between the organization and a specific community. It is owned, managed, and operated by one or more organizations in the community, a third party, or a combination of them.
- Community Cloud is another type of cloud computing in which the setup of the cloud is shared manually among different organizations that belong to the same community or area.
- Example of such a community is where organizations/firms are there along with the financial institutions/banks. A multi-tenant setup developed using cloud among different organizations that belong to a particular community or group having similar computing concern.
Example: Health Care community cloud
There are the following advantages of Community Cloud –
- Community cloud is cost-effective because the whole cloud is being shared by several organizations or communities.
- Community cloud is suitable for organizations that want to have a collaborative cloud with more security features than the public cloud.
- It provides better security than the public cloud.
- It provdes collaborative and distributive environment.
- Community cloud allows us to share cloud resources, infrastructure, and other capabilities among various organizations.
- Community cloud is not a good choice for every organization.
- Security features are not as good as the private cloud.
- It is not suitable if there is no collaboration.
- The fixed amount of data storage and bandwidth is shared among all community members.